• Air date: 19 Sep '70 23 episodes
      The fifth season of the original Mission: Impossible originally aired Saturdays at 7:30-8:30 pm from September 19, 1970 to March 6, 1971. "The Merchant" originally aired Wednesday, March 17, 1971 at 7:30-8:30 pm.
  • List of Episodes (23)
    • 1. The Killer

      19 Sep '70
      Hired killer Eddie Lorca does everything randomly, making him impossible to anticipate. The IMF must find out who his boss, Scorpio, is and all they know is Lorca is arriving in town for an assignment - they don't know who he's going up against. The team creates a ""blank"" hotel and Paris as a cabdriver intercepts Lorca at the airport. Paris and Willy have to stall when it takes more time to set up the hotel then it takes according to the phone book to get to ""their"" hotel. They then put the
    • 2. Flip Side

      26 Sep '70
      The IMF must break up a drug-smuggling ring - Bracken gets his drugs from Mexico compliments of Diego Maximillian, who gets his drugs legally from C.W. Cameron. The IMF must connect Cameron to Bracken. Jim plays a Syndicate man who orders the pills from Bracken, and Barney tracks the shipment and switches out the drugs. The team has Maximillian picked up in Mexico so that Bracken has to go directly to Cameron to buy the drugs - the IMF get everything on camera and turn them both over to the auth
    • 3. The Innocent

      03 Oct '70
      In the Middle East Willy and Barney infiltrate a chemical plant to gain access to Dehominant-B, a quick-acting lethal gas. Barney is exposed to Dehominant-A while trying to get to the computer and crippled - Willy escapes and Barney is captured. Barney is interrogated and only has four hours to live. The team find out that Dr. Jerry Carlin, a dropout, is the only other person with the skills to access the computer. When Carlin rejects the team's appeal for help, Jim and Paris frame Carlin's girl
    • 4. Homecoming

      10 Oct '70
      When Jim returns to his hometown of Norville to donate family property to the community, he finds it plagued by a serial killer. Jim secretly brings in Barney to help investigate. A disturbed Vietnam vet is the suspected killer but Jim and Barney figure out he's innocent and get him out of jail one step ahead of a mob, then call in the rest of the IMF team to find the real killer.
    • 5. Flight

      17 Oct '70
      Presidente Rojas plans to give a speech to the U.S. Congress while his Chief of Internal Security Ferrar plans a takeover and sends an assassin known only as Plato (and known only to Ferrar) to kill the Presidente before he gives his speech. The IMF must find out who Plato is and thwart the assassination. Ferrar follows Rojas to the U.S. where the IMF fake a plane crash - when Ferrar wakes up he is on an uncharted island colony inhabited by the prisoners from a missing penal ship. Paris pretends
    • 6. My Friend, My Enemy

      25 Oct '70
      A Communist agent, Karl Maur, spots Paris on vacation, knocks him out and turns him over to Dr. Tabor, who is a brain specialist and mind control expert. Unable to break Paris, Tabor blanks out Paris' memories and uses an implanted electrode to program him to attack Jim by convincing the disguise expert Jim represents an authority figure, similar to the ones he has lost two women to in the past. Doug and Jim find nothing wrong with him, but Barney finds fingerprints pointing to Maur and Jim dela
    • 7. Butterfly (aka Poor Butterfly)

      31 Oct '70
      Toshio Masaki, a powerful anti-American industrialist, kills his sister and frames her husband, an American businessman named Harry Kellem, so as to discredit America and discredit the Economic Council. Paris and Willy enter as a Kabuki artist and a fighter (along with Jim) while Barney and Dana sneak into the grounds and restage the murder as they believe it occurred but with no way of knowing how it ended well enough to convince Musaki. To create a distraction, Willy must engage in a fight wit
    • 8. Decoy

      07 Nov '70
      Anna Kerkoska plans to defect with a list of American agents given to her by her father, the late Premier. Her brother Alexi also plans to defect, but it's actually a plan to grab the list, turn it over to Police Chief Petrovitch, and sell out his sister. Jim and Dana pretend to be a publisher brother-and-sister team and Paris kidnaps Dana to fake-force Jim to kidnap Anna for the Americans. Petrovitch and Alexi let the plan go ahead, while Jim becomes romantically involved with Anna. The bad guy
    • 9. The Amateur

      14 Nov '70
      The team must steal a rocket laser and smuggle out Father Bernard and his list of Western operatives. Bernard puts the IMF in contact with Wittstock, who gets them the laser. Wittstock is killed after delivering the weapon and Police Colonel Eckert seals up the country to capture the IMF. Bernard dies of a stroke but gets the list, but nightclub owner Eric Schilling saw Dana with Wittstock and tries to take advantage of the situation to profit. When Barney splits the laser into five parts for th
    • 10. Hunted

      21 Nov '70
      A mission to rescue a South African dissident goes awry when Doug and his white assistant get the man out of the hospital, but the assistant is shot in the leg. Separated from the rest of the IMF team, the assistant staggers into a shop where a deaf girl discovers the man is Barney in a mask. The rest of the team gets the dissident out of the country and then goes back for Barney. To draw off the police, Paris pretends to be a limping white man, but is injured for real by two men trying to captu
    • 11. The Rebel

      28 Nov '70
      The IMF must rescue three scientists in a dictatorial country and destroy their notes. They rescue two but the third one, Khora refuses to leave and is executed. Jim and Dana meet with his son Alex (a rebel leader) to get his notes and Dana is captured by the militia along with Alex's girlfriend, who has memorized the doctor's notes. Barney and Doiug parachute in with a giant hollow religious statue that Jim uses to get close enough to dig into the prison while Paris, pretending to be an Intelli
    • 12. Squeeze Play (aka Sicily)

      12 Dec '70
      Albert Zembra, head of the Mediterranean branch of the Syndicate, is dying of cancer and plans on passing his list of opium farms to his chosen successor. He plans on turning power over to Carlos Empori, engaged to his granddaughter. Paris poses as a mobster and old friend of Eve's and ""renews"" his friendship with her, while Phelps, as Zembra's rival, warns Carlos that Paris plans to take over. Barney stages a fake assassination on Zembra, thwarting Carlos' security and making him look incompe
    • 13. The Hostage

      19 Dec '70
      After completing a mission Paris is undercover as an American businessman and still in disguise when he is kidnapped by Latin American revolutionaries led by terrorist Robert Siomney - they ask for the release of three prisoners in return for Paris' life. Paris fakes a disease forcing the government to drop medication, which the IMF has planted a tracking device in. Once they know where the revolutionaries' compound is, Jim fakes the exceution of two of the prisoners, putting pressure on the rev
    • 14. Takeover

      02 Jan '71
      Phelps must stop Charles Peck from using violence, created by professional provocateur Billy Walsh, to elevate his puppet, Mayor Steven Tallman to the governorship. Dana is a provocateur herself, arrested by Barney the current governor's representative. Walsh gets Dana out, and Paris is a blackmailer who convinces Tallman that Dana is his previously-unknown illegitimate daughter. Peck is concerned that Tallman (actually Paris in disguise) will confess their plans to save his ""daughter"", and or
    • 15. Cat's Paw

      09 Jan '71
      Larry Collier, newspaper editor and Barney's brother, is killed while trying to establish a link between corrupt police chief Abbott and Corley, the head of a ghetto mob who masks his illegal activities with an insurance front company. Barney, set up with a past as a crooked accountant, gets close to Corley by rescuing is secretary Millie - Corley hires him on when he finds out about his ""past."" Barney plants money to make it look like Corley's assistant Goslin is working against him, while th
    • 16. The Missile (aka Torpedo)

      16 Jan '71
      James Read, an enemy agent, is posing as an analyst to get to a top-secret U.S. missile guidance system being tested and steal the plans - the IMF must have him take back fake plans and unwittingly pass on the incorrect information to his superiors. Dana takes the place of Read's contact and he and fake boss Jim fake a romantic relationship so Read can get blackmail photos and use them to turn over the system. Read tells Dana of his plan to kill Jim, but before she can warn Jim, Dana is kidnappe
    • 17. The Field

      23 Jan '71
      An enemy power has launched a satellite containing a thermonuclear bomb and the IMF must destroy it. The control center on an island in the Adriatic Sea is surrounded by an impenetrable minefield designed by an American defector, Norris. Barney secretly sets off some of the mines - without an explanation, the facility security call in Norris, whom they haven't seen. Paris takes Norris' place and using plans that Jim stole earlier, shuts down part of the field, and Barney gets in to program the s
    • 18. Blast

      30 Jan '71
      Gregory Tolan leads an underground cell specializing in bank robberies with the money going to finance an American revolution. His mysterious sponsor is Jonathan Brace, who runs other such cells throughout the U.S. The IMF must find out Brace's identity and apprehend him. Phelps (as a demo expert) and Dana (as his insider at Tolan's next target) get recruited and has to make sure Tolan steals the money without the police knowing so he can lead them to Brace. When Jim stops Tolan from shooting Wi
    • 19. The Cataflaque

      06 Feb '71
      In San Pascal Premier Miguel Fuego and his nephew Ramone have signed a secret arms treaty with a Communist power to permit nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S. into their country. The IMF must expose the treaty before the missiles are installed. The team has Paris claim that Ramone's late father was killed by Miguel and that Paris' father at the closed Madrena Prison can verify this. The IMF secretly reopen Madrena prison and have Ramone arrested for fake-killing Doug, and Paris plays his previous
    • 20. Kitara (aka The Bigot)

      20 Feb '71
      John Darcy, codename 'Kitara', leads a liberation movement in the African country of Bocamo and has been inadvertently captured by the ruthless Colonel Kohler. Kohler plans to torture Kitara, who if he confesses his true identity will result in the destruction of the entire movement. Kohler is after a truckful of government gold bullion Kitara stole. Jim and Doug play agents while Barney is captured and gets the location of the bullion from Kitara and gets it to Jim. Doug warns Kohler about ""la
    • 21. A Ghost Story

      27 Feb '71
      Howard Bainbridge, a chemical warfare expert who defected to East, was contaminated by his own experiments and then returned back to the U.S. and his family manor, where his father (a paranoid arch-conservative) had him killed and the body buried. Since Howard destroyed the records before defecting, the IMF must recover the body to get a sample of the chemicals. The elder Bainbridge, Justin, is unaware that his head of security is an enemy agent also trying to find Howard' sbody. The IMF gain ac
    • 22. The Party

      06 Mar '71
      Alexander Vanin, arrested and convicted for espionage, hid a list of agents operating in the U.S. His control, Mishenko of the EEPR, has been ordered to get the list but Vanin refuses to give in because then Mishenko would cut him loose. The IMF must get the list. Vanin hypnotized himself to forget the list's location and only his wife Olga can give the trigger command to let him remember. Jim gets Olga to the U.S. while Barney and the others clear out the EEPR Consulate with a bomb ruse and the
    • 23. The Merchant

      17 Mar '71
      Armand Anderssarian is an illegal arms dealer who is about to complete a multi-million dollar deal selling arms to guerrilla groups around the world - the IMF must stop him. Jim pretends to be setting up a theft of a secret radar system and Anderssarian ""sponsors"" Jim with $5 million through Minister Sartori then plans to sell the system for $20 million. Meanwhile Anderssarian loses his $5 million to Paris (with Barney providing an assist) in a poker game. The IMF team perform a fake raid (und